Triumph TF450 transmission updates.

Yea I set the forks all up on a stone with some blocks and to my suprise they are all flat and square to shaft bore. The coating they have on the fingers is very hard and my ridding the bike only lightly due to injury just didnt wear them in much so the markes werent telling the story well. BUT yes the one with the raised markings ridding the gear was causing some issue. and the distance from the drum is a shocker really. I mean that one looks like it may be an actual error in layout of the cases? strange. It has me  concerned that there maybe an issue with fork pin axis possibly at a different angle to drum than it should be but need more investigation on that. BUT with the pin extended it seemed to shift clean and free , on the bench anyway

IMO with all ive found I think Triumph owes me a new motor. 

It is sad BUT simply returning the bike to a dealer is out for me. No garontee of agreenment on issues and an unknown wait time. Besides, I do my own work or I would not be in this sport. No offense to any dealers ability but I want to know for sure what Im flying on

A closer look at why the shift forks may be dragging and sticking on their shafts under shift loads. The “anti-seize” test suggests the stiction is a high pressure contact somewhere in the fork bore/ shaft interface. Looking closer I see a “sloppy joe” fit between fork bore and shaft of about .006”. That slop allows the fork to tilt under load and its poorly finished chamfer at fork bore ends present a sharp edge that digs into shaft. Simply polishing the shaft is not effective as the sharp edge just digs in anyway. 

Sharp or small area contact points intensify pressure and stress by surprisingly large amounts so, I tried rounding that sharp edge off. See Pic # 1. These images are exaggerated a bit to get the point across. That sharp edge at the fork bores chamfer easily digs into the shaft. Rounding it off and polishing made a solid difference. 

Notice the succession of grits I used. Nothing aggressive, just get that sharp edge rounded off. A good machinist could take it to next level by measuring everything and cutting the exact chamfer angle at that sharp edge to get a flat level ride against the shaft and then smooth/ round/polish from there BUT I want the back yard fix!!!! AND fortunately, this was effective.

See the rest of the pics and the vid. Each grit was twisted back n forth with good thumb pressure 30 times (10 twists, turn fork a bit, 10 twists, turn fork again, 10 more twists). This made a real difference in fork drag on the shaft when fork loaded sideways as would be in actual use, so I did it all again and it was noticeably better still. I suspect its actually good enough at this point but may try another round or two. 

 This method is far from textbook BUT it worked well AND if ya use the grits shown you should not get into trouble. Understand you’re just trying to round that sharp edge off and the size of the round needs to be enough to make a difference you can feel.  A few rounds of above technique should get ya there.

    I remind everyone this is not proven on track and that will have to wait till spring. This is simply suggestions on how to possibly remedy your Triumph without getting exotic and breaking the bank. Hard coat from here IF ya want and maybe take it to another level??  BUT I suspect we are approaching the point of diminished returns now. 

ok so I cant seem to load the vid so just imagine the last pic and twist away with firm thunmb pressure as directed in above post

AND this may prove important.....  While I see a marked difference in the drag and stickyness of the shift fork/ shaft when all is polished ( shafts done with same grits as forks) , and the sharp edge rounded /polished on the fork bore , I see evidence after repeated bench tests that the shift fork shafts are SOFT.  So after a bunch of shift cycles the shafts are looking anything but polished. Problem is as the shafts get scratched up the stickyness starts to come back. Not as bad as when the forks had a sharp edge digging in but nonetheless within a farly short time the shafts loose their polish, get scratched up,  and the sticktion starts to return. I am not certain its enough to cause a problem BUT,  for what its worth my gut tells me it may be a situation where all the polish and rounding of edges works for a while, then slowly creeps back into a stiff feel at the lever. I dont want to put it all together and find after a few hrs of operation its not quite as good as it could have been. So.....

IMO the shafts likley need to be harder to keep the slick performance long term. Was hopping it all can be overcome with practical home brew apprach BUT I am going to persue getting the shift shafts DLC coated. I suspect that will be the easyest approach rather than have new shafts ground out of harder steel? 

Anyway I will try to chase down a coater next week. I did call a few so far and none want to do work for indaviduals, only businesses. Likley there is someone out there who will do it. If when I find one will let yall know were to go if interested

Ok so heres a DLC coater that does work on bike parts,were great to deal with, and will do work for indaviduals 

Advanced Coating Technology

27334 Muirfield Lane, Valencia, CA 91355 | Office: 661-294-3836

about 150$ to coat the two shift shafts

Parts shipped out today

understand you must do a fine finnish and polish before DLC. Typically the coater will not do the finnish/ polish for you. 

BTW a neet trick to feel the difference that DLC can make on  sliding metal to metal surfaces is to simply rub Pencil lead all over  one of the surfaces , rub it in good, put a small film of oil on the other surface, and slide it all together. You should feel a marked difference compared to  simply well oiled surfaces. It will only work for a few strokes until the graphite/oil  gets pushed out. Suprising difference you can feel to help ya decide if DLC is worth it . I believe in the case of these shafts it is

we will see

Great info. Thank you.

Good luck.  You're on a helluva journey with this issue.

I was at a track this weekend and the guy that was parked next to me was going nuts because he had just recently picked his brand new looking bike up from the dealer for the transmission recall, rode it one time the week before, then got on the bike Sunday and it felt like the clutch was so smoked that the bike would barely move under it’s own power.  He said this was his fifth ride total on the bike, and this guy was nowhere near fast enough to smoke a 450 clutch in 5 rides on local MX tracks.  I wonder if the dealership put something back together wrong.  Either way, it sounds like they have some big issues to work through on the 450.

Yea Ive heard a number of issues with clutches as well BUT as you say it may be the dealer installed something wrong. The very idea that we are all to just give the bike to a dealer is completly unacceptable in my book. They can only do whatever Triumph corprate tells them or supplys them. If there are no truly updated parts, then what has been accomplished?

AND most of us do our own work anyway. What are we expected to give a bike to a dealer and wait what 3-4 weeks or more only to find they cant " recreate the issue" anyway.

 And the idea that this is a "first year issue" is rediculous. Triumph knows how to make motorcycles and what we have seen inside so far indicates they simply cheaped out mostly in fit and finnish and some QC issues. Ya got a bike with a quality view on the outside hidding someting different on the inside. 

BTW I have it on good advice that the company below will also do coating for indaviduals AND may be a better choice than the one I mentioned earlyer.

https://industrialhardcarbon.com/coatings/carbonraptor-dlc-wear-resistance-coating/

I do want to remind everyone that untill all this is proven on track its all still a big question mark. Winter usually gives us another suprise here in NY about now so it will be a few weeks befor a real test can happen

This has become the ultimate "don't buy a triumph" thread 😂. Lowmass should be expecting a call from RC to tell him to cease and desist or factory triumph offering him a job if he deletes this...

Does the cross-country model have these issues? I haven't heard much about it. 

I got a heads up the other day by someone whos been in contact with Triumph

They said Triumph "knows all about you"

Well Mr Triumph, Im ready at the keybard to sing prase,I want this to work out, I will  go back and shout your prases eveywhere I left a trail. IF ya make good on this AND dont give me a song and dance about leaving it a dealer for God knows how long only to get the same back. No dig at the dealers, they are at corprates mercy on this.

AND Im sure Triumph knows much better than I how to make this all work

Its simple. We now live in a world where the truth and the lies  can be broadcast world wide by anyone. So if your gona hide a suprise in your product then your going to have to deal with the fallout. 

IDK about the other models, my experience and the others Ive heard of have been focused on the MX model

"I wonder if the dealership put something back together wrong."

Lol...ya think.

I can say is I have about 11 hrs on my 26 TF450X and haven't had an issue. No missed shifts, no unexpected neutral, no clutch problems - nothing. If anything about the transmission I'd say it's tough to find neutral sometimes while stopped with the clutch in. 

I know MXA had issues with theirs. But in their previous long test of the 25 RC model they don't mention a problem with neutral, mostly just praise. Most all the other magazine shootouts didn't mention anything about false neutral, only that the bike seemed slow, and a few said it was hard to shift. Seemed if the trans was such an issue with it going into neutral more than one shootout would have mentioned it.

Before this bike I had a TF250 that I put about 35hrs on without issue. All track hrs, not trail riding. They did the recall improvements on it as well.  I talked to a couple guys I know before I bought the 450 that rode the RC model for awhile and they had for the most part nothing but good to say. They did say they caught neutral a couple times but they felt it was more on them than the bike because it only happened a couple times. I've hit neutral at least once on just about every bike I've ever owned. When it happens over and over because of a mechanical issue, you know. I haven't had that happen in 11 hrs of track time. If I do start having issues I'll be here to talk about it.

This goes along with what lowmass is saying that it's not a design issue, but a quality control issue. Some bikes may be fine, others not so much. 

On the shootouts, listening to pulp about what KTM made them do to the shootout bikes makes me doubt some of the results. They would tear down engines and polish ports, deck cylinders, ect. You think triumph wouldn't go through the bikes to make sure the magazines got bikes that shifted well? 

If they were smart, they'd hire you as their chief QC engineer!

Lol...for some reason I don't think Triumph is worried about you and what you think.

Probably more along the line of what other people reading this thread think; who is this guy? You obviously have a lot of time available.

As Ive said a number of times, Im sure they are a lot more knowladgable and experienced than I am. They know what to do

Its ecurraging to hear that some have bikes that work fine. Info like yours is part of the reason I thought it was worth the time to dig in as tyour experience would indicate its not a serious design issue and therfore ther may be a  fix us knuckle draggers can manage 

However 100% of the examples I have are doing what mine is doing and from the sheer number of things I found in mine its no mystery why

saying things like "all bikes have a false nutral now and then " whats the point of saying that? 

Is it not obvious there is a real difference between whats going on here and the occasional missed shift? Ive been at this game for over 50 years now and been through more bikes than I can rememeber. The last time Ive seen stuff like what I found in my bike was back in the 70s when we used to beg the dealer to not start the bike. we would get them and emediatly tear them down just to clean all the metal fillings out of the engines 

The trust people seem to have with "reviews" I find nieave. I would be willing to bet money that most today are in at least some level of career preserving silence mode. Its a breath of fresh air that MXA was willing to call it out AND if Im reading there voices right , even they were holding back a bit. People should be praising them and doubting the ones who have kept quiet

I tested  6 bikes in 2025. blue ones, orange ones,a  red one and this one. I chose to keep  the Triumph for its obvious serious attempt at a great chassis. Most dont have the engineering and development experience to see what Triumph has done in that dept. The others need work here imo. 

 If we can straighten out the shifting issues without braking the bank then I suspect many find this info useful 

"saying things like "all bikes have a false nutral now and then " whats the point of saying that?"

I never said that. I said I've hit neutral on just about all "my" bikes at least once. Mis-shift. Everybody who's ever rode has done it before. It's when it happens over and over or when it just jumps out of gear - when it's a problem. When it starts doing that it's usually something broken. MXA said they were hitting neutral, didn't say it was jumping out of gear. Not sure if they were shifting from first to second. Of all the other magazines that I saw, nobody else mentioned it. Dirt rider put 35 hrs on their bike without an issue.

Everything that you're doing can only help, and I applaud you for your extensive efforts. Deburring edges, dlc coating, it can only help.  It would help any bike. Any bike. People used to call it blueprinting (less the coating). As you said, it doesn't appear to be a design flaw because too many bike are out there not having issues. 

35 hours on a dyno 😂, dirt rider isn't even a shadow of what it once was. 

Lowmasses work has been great in this department, only downside is he doesn't have other bikes to get a larger testing group. Ive been watching on both vital and FB. 

I have a 26 with no issues atm but it definitely has me looking closely at it. Ill be putting a lot of hours on my tf450x soon enough if I dont end up abandoning it completely due to not trusting it. 

mXA did say that their 2025 bike eventually got to a point that were it was jumping out of gear at around 30 hrs with false nutrals getting worse up to that point AND that the 2026 bikes were on the path to similar. I have the "updates" on my 25 and can testify both from a look at the so called "update" and from time on track, that its not a serious effort and does nothing to fix the issues. The same shift star only polished and a bit stiffer clutch spring isnt adressing the issue

AND there are far too many reports on the triumph compared to other bikes to pass off as normal

I have 5 Triumphs as example, ALL are hitting false nuutrals and have a notchy stiff ffeel to the shift MORE than the other bikes

I have tested 5 2025 bikes ( and countles others over the years) of all different kinds with over 10 hrs on each in the last year. NONE of them shift with the notchy stiffness and none have the number of false nutrals. Not even close

From what I find with the short shift fork pins, even if your bike is shifting "ok" whatever that means, then its reasonable to assume those short pins are eating your aluminum shift drum up and ya might want to give it a check before a broken drum causes a jamb that cracks your 2500$ cases

And from the number of bikes Ive seen with wads of scotch bright pad material left in their engine ya might want to take a look at the large oil pump rotor and the drives gears. Mine at 3 hrs were close to distruction dragging wads of scotch bright through the pump rotor areas. Scatched up bore  surfaces stc. Easy check I got lucky with. Ya might want to check that

Some bikes likley wore off the large burrs left on gear dog pockets and shift "ok". Mine had a few burrs so large that they didnt wear off. Just rounded over into a tough ridge that literally stops the dog from dropping into the pocket of next gear. 3rd was ugly but 4 and 5th were even worse. 

Point is there is far too much found here to pass as normal on todays bikes AND this comming from a manufacture with experience building bikes.  BUT as far as I can see this transmission should work fine if we can eliminate a few sticky spots, we will see.......

Like I sad, if I was the average joe with little experience and unsure what to do with my 12K$  dirt scoot I would be thrilled there may be a fix that isnt gona cost me a ton of cash. Hopefully we have covered that here but for sure the real test will be the dirt a few weeks from now....

I know this is the internet and my opinion may not mean much, but I hope you take it easy with those mods you did. Those shift fork pins are not too short, and I don't think the cases are not parallel. The manufacturing and machining of those forks and shift fork shafts is crap, and you shouldn't have had to do what you did. The consequences of that pin coming out scares me and they need a kit available to fix it. Be safe.

MXGP bikes have some updates compared to last year, hopefully we'll see a new Triumph coming down the pipe with changes.

Just got a fresh TF450 RC 2026 yesterday.

Are there any things or precautions to consider? I've read something about the clutch and transmission.

Thanks in advance

Read this whole thread back from the beginning.  May God bless you, friend.

Dear PH and ML, any news according this ?
Possible to ask the factory teams ?